It's not a secret (oops sorry for the bad joke) that I don't like the principle behind the non-disclosure agreement. The idea behind a non-disclosure agreement is the old approach of "secrecy" in our societies. Everyday, we meet software/hardware companies trying to force people to sign non-disclosure agreements for some useful (and not always…) technical information (e.g. how to access a badly design wireless chipset). Everyone knows that Free Software is somehow due to a non-disclosure agreement proposed to Richard Stallman by Xerox for a simple printer driver. I had always the issue on how to explain clearly the "secrecy" concept behind non-disclosure agreement but today, I found the following explanation from Guy Debord. The text below is just from the commentary of his well-known book : Society of the Spectacle that has nothing to do with non-disclosure agreement. He talks about the role of "secrecy" in our societies and clearly explain at the same time the modus-operandi of a non-disclosure agreement :